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Thoughts on Flash

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Re: Thoughts on Flash

#231

Post by joshwa »

cjoh wrote: post #162
joshwa wrote: post #74

If they're going to pitch HTML5 as an alternative to Flash (and, implicitly, the iPhoneOS API), then why not let them compete directly with Cocoa Touch apps? Why not offer HTML5 developers a way to take advantage of the App Store's monetization and discoverability? Apple already provides some amazing documentation and tutorials for making offline-capable mobile web apps, but they're still treated by Apple as the bast…

I get this argument, but couldn't you say Apple gives the customer the best of both worlds? Web & HTML 5 support: developers can make or do anything they want to on the platform. App Store: Cultivated catalog of high quality apps for customers. At the end of the day, we don't need PhoneGaps or Titaniums-- we need MobileSafari to have the same hooks into the hardware (gps, compass, accelerometer, camera, etc) as Cocoa…

What I'm arguing for is not technology (which already exists), but technology support in the form of official frameworks, which subverts the "3rd party middleware" argument, and for equal access to distribution and payment channels. I have no motivation to create iPhone web apps if I can't easily get them in front of iPhone users monetize them.

A few other points:

- MobileSafari already has access to many hardware functions: gps, accelerometer, maybe compass? There are some great iTunes U videos on this if you're a member of the iPhone dev program. Obviously it would be good to have access to all the hardware features.

- Every time I hear about the App Store being "curated" for "high quality" I choke a little (iFart?). There's no reason why html5 apps in the app store wouldn't go through the same review process.

- The Google results for "congress" have no relationship whatsoever to "congress" in the App Store. Web pages != web applications.

"I don't understand why some enterprising YC person doesn't simply start making a web App Store app for the iPhone that allows people to sell web applications to iPhone users, handle fulfillment just like the App Store does, and handle curation, just like the App Store does."

Not a bad idea, in fact. A few big hurdles, though: 1) you can't install apps on the iPhone except via the App Store (or asking a mobilesafari user to create a home screen icon themselves) 2) payment system inertia-- who's going to sign up for another micropayment account when they're already set up with Apple?

EDIT: while I was writing this, nailer said it better and more succinctly.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#232

Post by richbradshaw »

qeorge wrote: post #216
richbradshaw wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever website I've ever made has had to avoid new features due to IE incompatibilities. CSS transitions and canvas are obvious examples.

Side point: why is supporting IE6 mandatory? Its been retired since 2005. We support IE6 wherever reasonable, but if you're building something that needs , I'd just do it. What was the feature in this case?

I don't go out of my way to support IE6, only obvious things where it's an extra line of CSS or whatever.

Canvas was to replace a timeline view of comments on blog posts, felt that not enough users would be able to see it to include it on the design.

I'd guess that worldwide there are plenty of neat little things that could be used that aren't because of trying to support IE.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#233

Post by tewks »

The underlying situation here is that the runtime should be an open standard. Adobe's insistence that everyone should be dependent on them is absurd seeing as they have little market power to make such demands.

There is a huge need for a solid authoring tool for the canvas and Adobe is the right company to build such a tool.

Adobe has been whining for far too long about its inability to lock people into a proprietary runtime with poor performance.

Hardware and OS makers should have the ability to implement the runtime in ways that improve the experience. Apple is correct in insisting on such. This won't just be good for Apple, it'll be good for the entire industry.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#234

Post by MartinCron »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #18

>I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts I'm guessing a company that controls information as obsessively as Apple doesn't just "jot down" its official response to a major, ongoing controversy. >We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. It so…

A true open market is far more messy and painful, at least in the short term, then Apple seems to want for its app store apps. As the device and app experiences are tightly coupled in the user's mind, every high-quality app is an asset to Apple and every low-quality app is a liability.

Not saying that I think it's the best way to go, but it's worth understanding the intention.

I like using app store apps the same way I've come to prefer console gaming over PC gaming. There's at least supposed to be a minimum quality bar that things have to pass, and I can experiment with things without worrying that they'll muck up my whole system. I've never had an iPad game require me to download and install beta-quality video card driver software in order to be playable, and for that, I'm thankful.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#235

Post by tomlin »

zweben wrote: post #218
tomlin wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the iPad, then other mainstream consumption devices. This argument doesn't live in 2010.

The point is it will only ever directly effect products made by the same company. A device from HP or Microsoft will never be hurt by an issue with a closed Apple platform. If there are issues with Flash, it will hurt every company using Flash, and there is nothing those companies can do about it other than bug Adobe to fix it or drop Flash support.

I don't disagree that Flash has the potential to create issues.

The argument just suffers from the fallacy of composition. The standoff motif is getting old. We're talking about software, not cold war against another country.

Apple doesn't want you to notice Steve behind the curtain. With Adobe we tend to pick and choose what we agree with and ignore the points that don't support our bias.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#236

Post by anatoly »

astrange wrote: post #206
WilliamLP wrote: post #99

The most brilliant part of Apple's marketing here is leveraging infighting and unintended consequences in the free software community. They don't care about open standards - that they would is, on the face of it, absurd. What they do know is that they will evoke much support for championing JS/HTML/CSS as an open plaform, and that it poses no actual threat to their App Store control. This is because of two reasons: F…

> They don't care about open standards - that they would is, on the face of it, absurd. They really do care about open standards. There is no reason why WebKit and several other projects have to be run in the open, after they stopped releasing several parts of Darwin, but they are. At worst, this is because there is more than one person at Apple, and the people who want things to be proprietary don't care about this…

Webkit has to be run in the open; it's originally based on KHTML and inherits its LGPL.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#239

Post by wallflower »

Timothee wrote: post #224
treblig wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did throw up this little Tweet a couple nights ago: http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829

And he did it at 9:42pm, iPhone's preferred (evening) time. ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250125 )

I think Gruber remains independent from Apple. It would be too conspiracy theory for Gruber/Daring Fireball to be a secret PR mouthpiece for Apple. More likely Apple reaches out to him because he is by far the most influential Apple website outside of Apple (MacRumors is a distant 2nd in my opinion). They don't have to pay Gruber anything; the increased ad revenue from being a member of the elite The Deck should more than compensate.

Re: Thoughts on Flash

#240

Post by anatoly »

tptacek wrote: post #169
efsavage wrote: post #155

Flash is closed, Apple is open. Huh? I can build a flash app entirely for free, legally, with zero restrictions, forever, on the tools I used to write it, or where I can deploy it to. Adobe has bent over backwards to make players (also free) backwards compatible. That's pretty open. I must pay to build an iphone app, which I can only do on a computer owned by the same company, running an OS owned by the same company.…

Apple makes Bill Gates look like Richard Stallman? Let me ask you something. How many of Microsoft's competitors are building products that compete directly with Microsoft core offerings using the source code to Internet Explorer?

None, because the source code to Internet Explorer isn't based on an LGPL library and so can be kept proprietary.

Now, how many Microsoft OSes refuse to run in a virtualization environment on non-approved hardware? How many treat such execution as a license violation?

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